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Sunday, 30 October 2016

Review - 'Arrow', S05E04 - 'Penance'

On its own, the previous episode of
Arrow had been entertaining
enough – but, not especially memorable. Despite its weaker
elements, though, the episode had still managed to set some
interesting character-arcs in motion – for Diggle and Felicity, in
particular. And, the fact that Oliver's new team had truly begun to
work together effectively gave the impression that we would soon be
moving on to conflicts that were a little more interesting than the
internal bickering we had seen, so far.

With
all of that in mind, it probably makes sense that the season's fourth
episode would seek to capitalise on that strong sense of forward
momentum. Here, we have Diggle in military prison, framed for a crime
he didn't commit – but, with Oliver and Lyla are working on a plan
to break him out, quite clearly against his own wishes. Rory,
meanwhile, has come to the conclusion that he can't be part of the
team, after all – after having learnt that Felicity was the one who
guided the nuclear warhead to Havenrock. In a somewhat surprising,
and nicely character defining moment, though, Rory seems genuinely
understanding of the fact that the deaths of his family and friends
wasn't actually her choice, and that she did the best that she could
in a terrible situation – but, perhaps understandably, he has still
come to regard her as a painful reminder of everything he has lost.

The
rest of the team, meanwhile, are still struggling to work together
effectively, despite their experiences in the previous episode –
with Wild Dog, in particular, proving to be a somewhat problematic
'wild card' in Oliver's carefully crafted plans. Of course, with
Oliver's sudden departure coming at the same time as Tobias Church's
sudden return to the spot-light, it seems that the team will have no
choice but to finally come together.

So, we
have an episode that is roughly divided between two separate
plot-lines – but, unlike in previous episodes, it was actually the
one focused on Oliver's new team that I found to be the most
successful. Perhaps it is due to the simple fact that Tobias Church
has quickly evolved to become a genuinely threatening, and very
effective, new villain – but, I found the newly forged team's
efforts, here, to be especially compelling.

The
fact that they would still try to put a stop to Tobias Church's
plans, even knowing how far out of their depth they were without
Oliver's guidance, was a great moment for each character. It was also
interesting to see newly appointed Deputy Mayor Quentin Lance and
District Attorney Adrian Chase (Josh Segarra) drawn directly into the
conflict, once Church launches a surprise raid on a police station.
While Quentin Lance already has a quite a bit of first-hand
experience with this sort of thing, of course, it was especially
interesting to see Adrian Chase's reaction. Chase is a character who
already seems to have been set up with his own closely held secrets –
but, his behaviour throughout this episode was especially
interesting. I suppose I'll just have to hope that, whatever the rest
of the season has in store for Adrian Chase, it will be a little more
interesting than him turning out to be Prometheus – because, that
would be a little predictable.

While
the team's efforts to stop Tobias Church made for a very interesting
conflict, I can't really say the same for Oliver's efforts to break
Diggle out of prison. In just about any other series, the correct way
to deal with someone who has been convicted of a crime they did not
commit would be to find a way to prove their innocence, and have them
released. But, of course, that's just not the case, here. Clearly,
Oliver Queen believes that he knows better – and, at least for the
moment, it seems that we are expected to accept that this was the
'right' thing to do. The ease with which everyone who was initially
critical of Oliver's plan (including Diggle, himself) soon seemed to
come around to his way of thinking did feel a little like the
writer's going out of their way to try to justify Oliver's decision,
to me – and, it was a little frustrating. Even his new team, who
earned themselves a pretty severe beating when they tried to stop
him, eventually just seemed to laugh the whole thing off as 'Oliver
just being Oliver'.

It's
not the idea of a character making morally dubious decisions, in
itself, that bothers me, here. I'm not even overly troubled by the
idea of a 'hero' who kills his enemies. Instead, I think that my main
issue is, and always has been, the simple fact that the writer's have
never seemed all that interested in actually exploring this aspect of
their primary protagonist (either that, or they have just done a
really bad job). Honestly, even in those moments when it seems as
though someone actually is
criticising Oliver Queen, or calling him out for his decision, the
series itself will eventually go out of its way to make it seem as
though Oliver was right, all along. Of course, it's possible that
there will be long-term consequences of some description, this time –
so, I suppose I'll just have to wait and see.

Still,
though, if I try to set aside my frustration with Oliver's behaviour
throughout this episode, then I can at least admit that there was
some fun to be had in the idea of Oliver and Lyla working together
(Lyla has often felt like a disappointingly underutilised character,
in spite of the importance that she seems to hold) – and, Oliver's
careful infiltration of the prison was a very well-done sequence.

Meanwhile,
back in Russia, Oliver's current plans to break into a military
prison and bust out the man he has come to regard as a 'brother' is
loosely parallelled by his final test to join the Bratva – in which
he must work his way into a Russian prison, in order to gain access
to a man who has information that he needs. The Bratva story-line
remains much more interesting than anything we saw throughout the
previous season – but, with this new chapter doing so little to
move things alone, it does feel as though this season's 'flash-back'
plot-line is already in danger of treading water in much the same
way. It just felt inconsequential, in the that an episode's
'flash-back' sub-plot so often seems to be.

Setting
aside my own personal issues, with regard to Oliver Queen, this was
still a very entertaining episode of Arrow.
It was an episode which featured some great moments of action – as
well as some very notable development for certain members of the
supporting cast. More importantly, though, the episode is able to end
on a genuinely tense cliff-hanger which should, hopefully, lead into
a genuinely exciting fifth episode for the season.